FCS2 on G5

[Corey Culp]

Eirik, I'm a bit suprised you get color to work on your g5 dual. I can't even get it to install on my g5 dual 2.5. works great on my 17" macbook pro however.
Aloha
-A

I have it running fine on my dual 2.3ghz G5. I think the key is the graphics card. My G5 is a BTO and I had bumped up the card (ATI 9650).

Of course, my 2.0 MacBook Pro smoke the G5 doing the same exact processes. In fact, when the G5 got to the 1/3 complete mark while analyzing a clip via SmoothCam, I started the MBP test. The MBP finished the analysis, allowed me to render, and was ready for playback before the G5 ever finished it's SmoothCam analysis! (And then the G5 took another 5 minutes to finish the clip analysis.)

Once the QctoProcs come down in price a bit (i.e. the $3000-3200 area), I'll upgrade the G5 to a MacPro.

 

[Cail Young]

if I'm working in HD and have a primary in grade, one vignetted secondary, and a primary out grade, I can adjust anything with relatively quick updates. As soon as I enable a second secondary (vignetted or not) it bogs down and runs very, very slowly. My theory is that it is switching from GPU to CPU at that point.

After more digging through the manual, Color exclusively uses the GPU for all corrections - therefore the brick wall must come from exceeding the ability of the GPU to execute the grade of the frame in one operation.

 

[mattbatt]

After more digging through the manual, Color exclusively uses the GPU for all corrections - therefore the brick wall must come from exceeding the ability of the GPU to execute the grade of the frame in one operation.

After reading this thread, maybe I'll wait on buying FCS2 (I have a dual G5 2.0). What is sad is that the G5 is powerful enough to accomplish many high end video/rendering needs (sometimes I wonder how graphic designers ever used a 1 mhz machine to do their work, or how movie titles were rendered on machines barely topping out the 200mhz mark in the mid 90's).

Btw, check out the new G6 processor—its the fastest single processor EVER developed (according to SPEC index) and is IBM's upgrade to the G5
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21580.wss

The problem is graphic card speed (and my generation of G5 is only AGP). Now, there are bios mods/flashing that one can do to take a PC Radeon x1900xtx and convert it for AGP 8x on a Mac and other mods (the x850XT is the same card as the x800, it just was 'detuned' because production was actually cheaper to disable some pipeline processors then to develop 2 different cards). SO, you can sodder a connection with your x800 and ramp it to an 850xt.

Just check out http://strangedogs.proboards40.com/ sign up and view the forums. You may find a graphic card there anyway.

OK, back to the point: Apple is writing proprietary software to Intel now and we all know it deep inside. The G5 is going to get slower and slower as software denies it's capabilities. Software is the key. Right now, at my design job I'm running a MacPro 2.66 quad and it runs CS Suite 2 slightly SLOWER than my dual 2.0 G5 because its running Rosetta. Now CS3 will see 400-600% increases in speed for Intel Macs, but it is actually more sluggish on G5's.

So, when I personally buy my MacPro, I'm going to wait for SLI cards. Honestly, I think that's what we need more so that 8 processors right now (since bus bottlenecks occur with the Octo). Apple has always been a little slow to embrace the latest GPU's (well, I'll give Apple a break, its ATI and Nvidia who delay their 'mac' versions). SLI is the way to go and surprisengly, Apple was the first to invent this technology years ago but it never caught on then . . .

 

[Cail Young]

OK, back to the point: Apple is writing proprietary software to Intel now and we all know it deep inside.

1) Not yet they're not. Adobe and Microsoft and Joost might be following those lines, but FCS2 is a Universal suite, and will stay that way for a long time.

2) How is this relevant to discussion of GPU?

 

[mattbatt]

1) Not yet they're not. Adobe and Microsoft and Joost might be following those lines, but FCS2 is a Universal suite, and will stay that way for a long time.

2) How is this relevant to discussion of GPU?

1.) Universal means nothing. Do you know about compilers and optimization components to properly use the data pipelines of the processors? Remember when we all when from 68k to PPC (the 601 RISC processor from Motorola?) Software was then written as 68k and PPC, some could run on both machines, eventually the software went only to PPC. Well, the software written for both 68k and PPC was horrible on 68k machines. It was "universal" but optimized for the PPC.

2.) Half of my discussion was about the GPU. Go to strangedogs, learn about flashing your GPU if you are like me and have a 1st gen. G5 without the PCI-Express slot. The point is, what is holding back FCS2 is not the G5 but the software and GPU. Sure the Intel is faster, but it would be helpful if you ran a 1900xtx or something. So flash it for your older G5 is my point.

 

[Cail Young]

1.) Universal means nothing. Do you know about compilers and optimization components to properly use the data pipelines of the processors? Remember when we all when from 68k to PPC (the 601 RISC processor from Motorola?) Software was then written as 68k and PPC, some could run on both machines, eventually the software went only to PPC. Well, the software written for both 68k and PPC was horrible on 68k machines. It was "universal" but optimized for the PPC.

I can't say that FCP6 or anything else in the suite is running noticably slower on my iMac G5; perhaps you're having a different experience.

The point is, what is holding back FCS2 is not the G5 but the software and GPU. Sure the Intel is faster, but it would be helpful if you ran a 1900xtx or something. So flash it for your older G5 is my point.

Perhaps what's holding back Color is, yes. If I could put an x1900XT in my iMac I would.

 

[Matthew Rogers]

Eirik, I'm a bit suprised you get color to work on your g5 dual. I can't even get it to install on my g5 dual 2.5. works great on my 17" macbook pro however.
Aloha
-A

I've got FSC2 & Color running fine on my Dual 1.8 G5 w/2GB Ram. True, color doesn't run that fast (only have a ati 9800 Pro), but I have been already able to color correct a small project (which worked much better than filters in FCP.) My only problem was that it took the colors and did a bad gradient in the final render (only noticeable when the subject walks in and out of light with his bald head.)

I'm hoping that I can use my AJA IOla to monitor Color on my production monitor.

Matthew
PS. Being able to drop a clip onto a fresh timeline and have the timeline switch to the clip settings is worth the upgrade!

 

[Robert Sanders]

Some companies are offering a free FCS2 upgrade with the purchase of the AJA IO HD.